


Bits and Pieces (drabbles, scenes, and short fics)

by Tsaiko



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hikaru no Go, Pacific Rim (2013), Teen Wolf (TV), The Hobbit - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Welcome to Night Vale, Young Avengers
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Creepy, Dick Pics, Dragon!Thorin, F/M, Gen, Genderbending, Gun Violence, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Masturbation, No Strings Attached, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Pre-Young Avengers, Shapeshifting, Skrull(s), Temporary Character Death, Threats of Violence, Unplanned Pregnancy, Violence, back from the dead, dragon Thorin, implied voyuerism, weird sense of humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:42:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 12,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsaiko/pseuds/Tsaiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of scenes, drabbles, and short fics that never morphed into the longer pieces I intended. The scenes are complete (so nothing cuts off mid-sentence or just ends abruptly), but each chapter is everything that is written for that piece. Various fandoms. Various lengths. Notes at the beginning will have any necessary warnings (as will the tags, which I will add to as necessary) and notes at the end will talk a bit about what I intended to write or the set-up I was going for. Chapter headings will have fandom, title, and list pairings as appropriate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thor (movieverse), Sleipnir, no pairing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original Norse myth, Loki changes himself into a mare and winds up pregnant with Sleipnir, so I don't know really what tags to apply to this. Genderbending seemed the best choice and most appropriate for the myths in question? Also I added the unplanned pregnancy tag to this, and then laughed and laughed because I am a terrible person.

Odin found Loki sitting in one of the feast halls that overlooked the city. “You are my son,” Odin said as soon as he was close. Loki turned abruptly to look at him. “I will not allow you to shirk your duty. As I gave you and Thor you names, so shall you give a name to your son.”

“I will not...” Before Loki could finish, Odin had him by the arm, dragging him like he was a petulant child of seven winters instead of seventeen. Loki’s first instinct was to dig his heels in, but felt that that would only worsen the impression of childishness. He forced himself to keep pace with his father, throwing on an invisible cloak of bravery and duty around his shoulders.

The false cloak failed when his father opened the stable door. The stables were lit enough by the sunlight that pooled around the open door during the day to make any other light source redundant. Still the building was shadowy, and filled with the scent of hay and horse, dust and manure. Loki’s steps faltered. He stood at the entrance, uncertain. 

Odin would have none of it. He pushed Loki forward with hand on his back. “I should have made you do this just after he was born. It would have been easier then.” 

“No, it wouldn’t have. He is a horse. He will not know one name from another. Give him a name, Father, and be done with it,” Loki said. _He will not know that his father did not give him a name._

“He is your son and my grandson. Look into his eyes, just once Loki, and tell me you do not see a bit of you in him. He deserves a name befitting of a son of Loki,” Odin said. “Your son is no ordinary horse. He is better than any horse in all of Asgard.”

Loki wasn’t sure he agreed with the pride in Odin’s voice. His feet carried him forward, but each step became slower and slower as he approached the back of the stables. Curious horses came to the front of each stall, ears pricked forward. He’d heard through court gossip that Odin had forbidden anyone from riding the stallion and had moved him to the back of the stables. To the largest stall. So even though Loki had not entered the stables since the terrible night he’d given birth, he knew where the stallion was kept.

When he came to the stall, Loki almost didn’t recognize the stallion. Just a few months ago he’d looked like a yearling still: big enough to be mistaken for a full-grown horse, but with a slight gawkiness that showed he wasn’t quite full grown. Now the stallion was larger, more muscled. His coat had also lightened, going from a steely gray to a more silvery color.

For a second, Loki felt a stab of worry. The stallion he’d given birth to was growing faster than any horse should. Did that mean that the eight-legged horse he’d birthed would die that much sooner?

“He has grown,” Loki said. The stallion’s head came up at the sound of his voice and he snorted once. Loki stood at the front of the stall, unsure. One of the stallion’s eight hooves dug at the straw on the floor.

“The stablemaster says his growth is slowing. He will live a long life,” Odin replied. Loki looked sharply at his father, having forgotten just how much Odin saw with his one eye. “Be careful. He has a vicious bite.”

Despite his father’s words, Loki reached his hand forth. “I should have brought something for him.” The stallion didn’t step forwards, choosing instead to stretch his neck to reach Loki's hand. 

The stallion’s - _his son’s_ \- muzzle touched Loki’s fingers. It was softer than goose down, and Loki felt something tighten inside his chest. Maybe it was just wishful thinking or an idea planted by his own father, but for the first time Loki could see a bit of himself in the stallion. It was there in his son’s green, green eyes.

The stallion seemed to recognize Loki’s scent. He stepped forwards, lipping gently at Loki’s fingers, before he pushed his nose into Loki’s dark hair. Loki laughed and stroked his son’s neck. The stallion whickered and sighed.

“What will you call him, Loki Odinsson?” 

Loki pressed his face against his son and breathed in the scene of horse. “His name is Sleipnir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My notes actually had several scenes for this, mostly following the original Norse myth up to a point. This would have included the fact that Loki did not intend to get pregnant as a mare. i wanted something a bit different than the standard "Odin is VERY UNHAPPY with Loki's children." I liked the last scene, but could never get anything more written.


	2. Young Avengers: Skrull Wedding Vows, Billy/Dorrek VIII (aka Teddy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Graphic talk about violence and murder, weird sense of humor

"Teddy, have you seen these vows?" Billy asked. Dorrek VIII, also known as Teddy, looked up. He was currently reading the latest legislation the Skrull council was trying to push through and, given the number of lines he'd already crossed out, it was obvious that the council had been hoping he wouldn't read it. Teddy was so wrapped up in what he had been doing that it took him a few seconds to process what Billy had asked. 

"What vows?"

"Skrull wedding vows. I had them translated into English so I knew what I was saying before I said it in front of everyone." The corner of Teddy's mouth tipped up. He liked it when Billy said that, because it made their upcoming marriage seem _real._ Billy didn't notice, too busy reading the vows in a voice that got progressively higher pitched as he went on.

"I promise not to murder you in our marriage bed while you sleep. I promise not to stab you from behind, but kill where you can see my face one last time. I promise not to bury you alive leaving you gasping for breath in the darkness." Billy stopped to look at Teddy. "Is this seriously what the wedding vows say?"

"It's much more romantic in Skrullos," Teddy replied.

"It would have to be," Billy shot back. He read the next line. "I promise if I poison you, the poison will be quick and painless instead of agonizing and lingering." Billy huffed, caught between disbelief and irritation."Hey Teddy, how about you just promise me you won't poison me at all."

"Um…" Teddy put down the pen, realizing that getting back to work was a lost cause at this point. "That's kind of an unreasonable request."

"Unreasonable? How is asking for a promise not to poison me unreasonable?" Billy walked over towards the desk and slapped the pages with the translated vows down on top of it. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. "Explain this to me."

"Well, if we were being invaded, there was no chance of escape, and I knew that the invaders would do terrible things to you if they caught you, then I would consider poisoning you." It was said in such a calm voice that Billy could only stare because it meant that Teddy had given this serious thought. Thought about _poisoning him._

"If we are ever about to be invaded with no hope of escape, I want to go down _fighting._ " The slow grin that spread across Teddy's face as he got to his feet made Billy sputter. "That is not romantic!"

"Mmm…." It only took Teddy one step before he was standing right in front of Billy, hands splayed just above Billy's hips. Teddy leaned forward until his lips brushed Billy's ear. "Whatever you say."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be part of a much larger work where Teddy grows up as Dorrek VIII and becomes the Skrull Emperor before he meets Billy. I got this idea and had to write it. I think I had problems figuring out how they met and what Billy's background was. I remember there were 3-4 different plot ideas where they met, and could never really figure out to work this scene into any of them. I still love it.


	3. Welcome to Nightvale, A Dying art, no pairings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of animal death

Carlos should have known something was wrong when he turned the handle of his front door, and found it unlocked.

He never left his door unlocked. Never. Carlos had developed a routine - had it down to a science, if you could pardon the pun - that was so familiar that he went through the motions without thinking about it. That was the point. Securing the house he rented needed to be automatic, done every time he left without question. This was Nightvale, after all.

Of course, the issue with doing something automatically is that the brain tended to not make note of it. Then you were left wondering if you had actually performed the action, or if you were remembering some previous time when you'd done it. Every time Carlos had the feeling he’d forgotten to lock the door, he’d gone back to check. Every time

This time, though, the door was unlocked. Carlos tentatively pushed it open. Nothing was disturbed in the living room. The television was still there, as was his laptop sitting on the coffee table. Those would have been the first things to go had someone decided to rob the place.

 

There was a sheep’s head on the island in his kitchen. Carlos froze. The sheep’s head stared at him, eyes blank in death, and mouth slightly open in a state of perpetual surprise. Someone had thoughtfully set the head on one of the kitchen towels, so that it wouldn’t leak blood everywhere. The towel itself looked like it belonged in a murder scene.

“Oh. You’re home earlier than I expected.” The voice was neutral in accent, and pleasant in tone. Carlos looked towards the sound without even thinking.

And froze.

His eyes and the rational part of his mind told him it was Cecil. It looked like Cecil. Moved like Cecil. And who else had a key to his apartment? Just Cecil. 

The irrational part of his brain - the part that still flinched at the things that flickered out of the corner of his eye and breathed quietly from the recesses of the dark - was gibbering that that was not Cecil. Carlos should really trust that part of himself after having lived in Nightvale for so long.

“Cecil?” he asked tentatively.

“No, I’m sorry. You’ve mistaken me for someone else

“Kevin.” Carlos didn’t even realize he’d spoken until Kevin smiled a too sharp smile with too sharp teeth. His black eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Yes, I am Kevin. I don’t believe we’ve met before, but you must be Carlos. I apologize for the mess.” Kevin gestured to indicate the blood and entrail covered counter. “I put down some garbage bags to contain it, but I’m afraid some of it might have escaped. Cleaning dried blood out of grout is never fun.”

Carlos didn’t find that reassuring in the least.

“Augury,” Carlos said as the word came to him. Kevin blinked for a second. “You were doing augury to predict when I would be home.” 

“Brains as well as looks. It’s no wonder Cecil is so enamoured with you. Most people don’t use augury any more,” Kevin said. Then his smile turned sly, his voice slightly rueful. “It’s a dying art.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The joke at the end. I still laugh and cringe when I read it. There was supposed to be more to this fic (and it was supposed to connect up with the piece called "Written in Blood and Bones"), but I could never get them to connect well. I really wanted to write Cecil and Kevin meeting too. Just never happened.
> 
> Edited to fix a sentence fragment. -_-


	4. Captain America Winter Soldier, The Winter Knight, no pairing

The Winter Soldier couldn’t stay in Washington, DC.

It was a combination of several things. Washington was one of the few cities that had held onto its height restrictions mostly because it took a literal act of Congress to do anything in the city. So all the buildings were low and didn’t need much reinforcement. There was also the architecture: a combination of classical styles that consisted of column, steps, and stone interspersed with the occasional modernist monstrosity.

The end result was the same though. There wasn’t enough iron in the city. Hydra might be crippled, but his other masters were very much alive and well. Eventually they would come for him. When they did, they would drag him back to the world of cold and ice.

New York was much better. Here iron ran under the streets, the sidewalks, and even the rivers. It was in the streetlamps, the buildings clothed in glass, fences, balconies, old beater cars. The fae couldn't get to him in New York. The Winter Soldier knew it. They knew it.

He didn't realize they wouldn't even try. It was beneath them to chase any of their pets. 

So they kidnapped Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the idea of doing a story where you find out that Bucky is called "The Winter Soldier" because he keeps going to the Winter Court of the fae. Hence the not aging at the same rate as everyone else. I could not for the life of me get a solid, coherent plot to form. Sometimes if I start writing, a plot will come to me. This was not one of those times.
> 
> In other words, I had this great idea, and all I got was this lousy paragraph.


	5. Teen Wolf, Dick Pics, Stiles/Derek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Dick pics, explicit content, masturbation

“My son Derek is coming to the holiday party on Saturday,” Talia said first thing Thursday morning. “I’ve told you about Derek, correct?”

Stiles barely managed not to roll his eyes. Yes, Talia Hale had told him about Derek. Repeatedly. He was beginning to suspect that it was a case of ‘You’re both single and like guys. You would be perfect for each other.’ Normally, Stiles was more than happy to shut that kind of thing down. Except Talia was a) his boss, b) Alpha of one of the longest running packs in California, c) an excellent leader and d) a good boss. 

The last would have been enough for Stiles to curb his snark. The rest was just added incentive.

“You’ve mentioned him a couple of times,” Stiles replied. Obviously he hadn’t curbed the snark as well as he’d hoped. Talia gave him a long look before she sighed.

“I have pushed you on this, haven’t I?” Talia looked both regretful and defeated at the same time. It made Stiles feel like the world’s worst employee. “Just let me know if I’ve gone too far, and I’ll stop.”

“No, no. It’s fine,” Stiles assured her. “I admit, I’m curious about him. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Talia suddenly smiled. Stiles had the feeling that he’d just been played. Now he knew where Laura got it from. Talia was just better at the end game than her daughter. She had more patience. Laura would be a scarily effective Alpha one day, just like her mother, once she grasped the art of patience.

“That’s good, because I mentioned you to him, and Derek said the exact same thing. Saturday at 6pm. Wear a suit. Also, I have another 50 Christmas cards that need to go out by tomorrow.” She plopped the cards and envelopes onto the desk.

Stiles groaned. Talia pretended not to notice.

***

It was official: Stiles hated Christmas cards. 

Stiles hated folding the cards. He hated forging Talia’s signature on the inside. He hated stuffing the cards in the envelopes, sealing them with the envelope moistener that half the time didn’t work, and pressing them shut. He hated fighting with the word processing program to get the labels formatted correctly. He hated that half the time the printer ate a sheet of labels or started leaving streaks, resulting in him having to disassemble the stupid thing to get everything working again. Then it was more mind numbing work as he put labels on the on the envelopes and ran them through the postage meter.

The batch of 50 he’d done today was a small addition. Since Thanksgiving he’d send out well over 2,000 cards. One of the pitfalls of working for one of the premier Alphas on the West coast. Stiles really, really hated Christmas cards.

He got to his apartment and found it empty. There was a note on the kitchen counter from Scott. There’d been a last minute Happy Hour with the people in the graduate department and he’d gone there. Stiles sighed. At least it meant having some time to himself.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d get a chance to exchange pics and texts with SourWolf. It would certainly make this day much more bearable. 

First, food. Stiles decided that Thai was acceptable. Thirty minutes and $20 later, Stiles had food. He sat down, ate, watching a little bit of TV, and kept an eye on the clock. Scott wouldn’t be back until sometimes after 10:00. That left him plenty of time for a bit of sexting and some masturbation.

Stiles grabbed his phone, opened the texting app, and selected SourWolf. He typed in his text. _You there?_ Sent.

He only had to wait a few seconds before there was a response. _Yeah. I’m here. What do you want?_

SourWolf had started out as a one night stand from six months ago. They’d met at the Jungle, had mind blowing sex in a hotel room, and had parted the next morning on good terms. Neither was looking for a romantic relationship. No dates. No confessions of love. No meeting the family. They’d exchanged phone numbers more as a reflex than a plan.

Since then, they’d hooked up at least two dozen times. They’d also gotten to texting each other, little bits of trivia or random thoughts or the everyday annoyances that they wanted someone to commiserate with them on. Stiles didn’t know the guy’s name, and the guy didn’t know his. Stiles was Spark, and the other guy was SourWolf. 

There were a lot of things that worked for them. SourWolf liked it when Stiles talked dirty. Stiles liked it when SourWolf was snarky and demanding. Stiles didn’t mind that SourWolf was a werewolf and was fixated on his neck. SourWolf didn’t mind that Stiles got off on pictures of his dick. It worked for them.

_Dick pic?_ Stiles always made it a question, not a demand. Sometimes SourWolf couldn’t or didn’t want to send him anything. That was part of their arrangement. They could say no, and it was not a big deal.

_Give me a second._

Stiles felt himself grinning. He unzipped his jeans, settling down on the couch a little more, and started rubbing himself through his underwear. It wasn’t long before his phone chirped. A quick swipe of his thumb and there was a picture on his phone.

No one should have a dick that looked that good. It was half hard, a bit flushed at the tip, and framed by the vee of SourWolf’s jeans. There was tile floor in the background. It looked like SourWolf was in a bathroom.

The thought was hot enough for Stiles to pull his own dick and give it a couple of strokes. Fuck.

_You up for more?_ Stiles asked. This was promising to be a short and fast wank, but Stiles was willing to slow it down if SourWolf wanted him too. He was considerate like that.

_Out. Later._ That confirmed what Stiles had suspected. SourWolf had taken a picture of his dick in a bathroom. Stiles imagined that SourWolf hadn’t even gone into a stall. Half hard and desperate, he’d pulled himself out right there in the men’s bathroom where anyone could walk in and see him.

His phone fell out of his hand, as Stiles used both of his hands to touch himself. One hand cradled his balls, the other stroked his dick. Hard and fast. With a little twist at the end. Stiles tipped his head back, arching off of the couch, his lungs working to get enough air. His orgasm hit him fast and hard. 

Less than a minute later, and the postcoital bliss was over. Great. He’d come all over himself. Stiles reached over to the side table, grabbed a few tissues, and cleaned himself up. Scott would complain about the smell, but Stiles didn’t care.

In fact, he was smiling. At least this part of his life was going well. Every other part of his life might crazy and stressful, but his fuck buddy relationship with SourWolf was good. That made it all worthwhile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know where this is going, right? Ultimately, this story died because I just could not push through the second-hand embarrassment to write the scene where they meet and realize who they are. I tried several times. Couldn't do it. So this is where this story has stood.
> 
> I do know that Derek _left his family at the dinner table in a restaurant_ to take that dick pic. So there's a fun mental image for you.
> 
> This was based on one of those prompt lists that floats around every so often.


	6. Teen Wolf/Welcome to Night Vale, No Werewolves, no pairing

“The Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Secret Police... what? What’s that? Well, everyone knows about them any... no. No. I understand. Sorry folks. I’m still getting use to the new town. The Beacon Hills Sheriff’s non-Secret Police would like to remind everyone that there are no werewolves in Beacon Hills. Anything that looks, sounds, or kills like a werewolf is actually a mountain lion. Please keep this terminology in mind when reporting any suspicious deaths to the Sheriff’s department.

And remember, there are no werewolves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I intended to write more of this? My notes for it say "continue" and that's about it. Good job, past self. Very clear direction on where you intended this to go. -_- 
> 
> As it is, I think it stands on its own. I like the idea of exploring all the weirdness that's going on in Beacon Hills through the eyes of Cecil, who is more use to Night Vale where everyone not only knows about but sort of acknowledges the weirdness. I wish I had written more.


	7. Teen Wolf/Pacific Rim Fusion, Too Much Information, Derek/Stiles, Scott/Allison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairings: Derek/Stiles, Scott/Allison.

“Initiating neural handshake.”

Linking up with Scott was always like taking a blow to the head. Even knowing it was coming, there was a confusing moment of blinding white light followed by a flash of darkness. Then memories: Scott and him meeting in second grade, Scott’s dad leaving, his mom dying, taking Lydia to the school dance, Scott asking Allison to borrow a pen, Stiles getting shot down by Danny, Scott kissing Allison for the first time. Stiles knew better than to focus on any particular event. Instead he just let the memories flow by.

“Sequence complete.” 

Stiles blinked back bright spots. The computer generated voice echoed through the cabin. “Left hemisphere synced. Right hemisphere synced.” Scott reached forward with his right hand and Stiles did as well, perfectly in time. They fell into the familiar rhythm of motions that would test out each servo and gear in their upgraded jaeger.

“I can’t believe you slept with him,” Scott said.

“Really Scott? Really? We’re going to have this conversation now?” Stiles replied. Stiles wondered if somewhere in the Shatterdome, Derek was struggling to keep his expression neutral. Scott at least had enough sense not to announce just who Stiles was sleeping with. “I think just having this conversation is a violation of the bro-code.”

They both stepped forward, then back, and then sideways. The jaeger responded with no hesitation. Control asked them to go a little slower on the left foot. Something was coming up strange on the sensors..

“Knowing as much as I do about your sex life is a violation of the bro-code,” Scott replied. Then in response to something Control asked. “No, I don’t feel any sluggishness in the left knee joint.”

“You do not get to complain. How many years have I had to know all the details about you and Allison’s sex life? Have you heard me complain? No.” Stiles keyed in a sequence to try the thrusters. “So now that I actually have a sex life, you don’t get to complain either.”

“That’s different.”

“How so?” Stiles asked. All systems checked out with the thrusters. Next was the coolant venting system.

“First, you’re a voyeur,” Scott said. Stiles tilted his head back and forth in contemplation, but decided to give Scott that one. He was kind of a voyeur. “Second, you like girls and boys. I am completely straight. I do not want to see that much dick.”

Stiles broke into laughter. “Some day Scott you are going to meet a boy who will make you regret those words.” Scott snorted, as if he didn’t quite believe Stiles. His loss.

Okay, time to get serious. “Control, any further tests?”

“Everything is coming back normal. You are all clear.”

“Scott?” Stiles looked over and Scott met his eyes. “Let’s take her for a spin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of those great ideas that kind of died after one scene. I wanted to write more, but could never figure out how to go beyond the whole "Let's retell the Pacific Rim movie plot only with different characters." There's nothing wrong with that. I've read many a good fic based on that premise. It's just not something I can write.


	8. Young Avengers: Pros and Cons, Billy/Teddy

Teddy was in the middle of microwaving a bag of popcorn when the lights flickered once, twice, and then died. Inside the kitchen there was total darkness, which meant that more than just their apartment was out. The bag gave one last forlorn pop, and then there was total silence as well. Then Billy called out.

"That wasn't me!"

"I didn't think it was," Teddy called back. Billy hadn't tripped a breaker in years and he definitely hadn't taken out the electricity to an entire block. "Where are... ouch!" Teddy found the counter with his side.

"Stay there. I'll come get you." Billy's voice floated through the darkness. Blue light flared to life from the depths of the apartment, sending odd shadows dancing across the walls. It flickered once or twice. Then it seemed to stabilize, and begin to move. Soon Billy appeared from around a corner with a small glowing blue light hovering over his shoulder.

"One of the pros of being a superhero," Billy said gesturing towards the light. "Where did we put the flashlights?"

"I think we need to find our cell phones instead." Teddy made a gesture towards the windows. "Who knows how big this power outage is."

At that exact moment, the theme from the old Avengers TV show filled the apartment. In stereo. Which meant that someone from the rest of the team was trying to contact them.

"So much for a quiet night at home," Billy muttered as he tried to track down his cell phone. "Why can't New Yorkers just sit in their apartments during a power outage instead of running around in the streets rioting?"

"One of the cons of being a superhero," Teddy replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a fun short drabble inspired by one too many power outages at my old apartment.


	9. Young Avengers: Stuck, Billy/Teddy

The banging coming from the kitchen was distinctive, so Teddy recognized it almost instantly. He debated for a second whether to remain on the couch or help. The banging got louder. Right. Teddy did not want to pick up broken glass.

When he got to the kitchen, Billy was still banging the jar against the edge of the counter. Then he tried once again to get the lid off. It refused to budge.

Teddy walked into the kitchen and held out his hand.

"I can do it," Billy replied. The muscles in his arm were straining slightly as he tried to get it off. "I can."

Teddy continued to hold out his hand.

"Fine." Billy handed off the jar. Teddy took the lid in one hand and the jar in the other. One sharp twist, and the lid was off. "That works only because you have super strength."

Teddy made a non-committal noise in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my house, I am usually the one who gets the stuck lids off. :D


	10. Young Avengers: Welcome to the Neighborhood, pre-slash Billy/Teddy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Young Avengers formation, Alternate Universe

Billy officially hated moving.

The worse thing was, Billy didn’t know which part he hated more. Maybe it was seeing his entire life broken down and fitted into a series of non-descript cardboard boxes. Maybe it was being stuck in a car for three days with his family – and Billy totally agreed with his dad they should have kept going and done it in two. Maybe it was leaving behind New York for some small town, Nowhere, USA. 

Maybe it was the sick feeling of nerves and anticipation he got whenever Billy realized that he’d be going to a new school. Not that Billy had really had many friends at his old school. There had been a few casual acquaintances, but no one wanted to be caught talking to him as long as he’d been a target. And then after the whole incident with Kessler, no one wanted to even be near him for fear he might turn into the human lightning storm again. 

Or maybe it was the fact that he had to climb a flight of stairs to reach his new room. Hadn’t this place ever heard of elevators? Elevators beat stairs any day of the week. Billy would rather live on the sixth floor of a place with an elevator than on the second of a place without.

It seemed to Billy that every step he took up, the box he was carrying gained a pound. Gravity seemed to be working overtime here. Finally, he stood at the top of the stairs only to be confronted by a hallway and four closed doors. He propped the box against the stair railing so that all its weight wasn’t resting on his arms.

“Which room is mine?” Billy yelled down the stairs. 

“The one at the end of the hall,” his dad yelled back. 

“Figures.” Billy picked up the box and headed down the hall. When he got to the last door he nudged open the door with his foot, and set the box on top of the other boxes that were stacked into a corner. His bed sat in pieces propped against the wall. The desk was buried under more boxes. The nightstand was sitting on its side, the drawer still taped shut. His computer was still downstairs where the movers had left it. “At least the room is large.”

The closet was hidden behind the wall of boxes, so inspecting that was out. He could still get to the window though. It was covered by a set of blinds, but Billy could see light leaking through the slats. Which at least meant that the view wasn’t blocked by a tree or anything.

As he got closer to the window, Billy could hear the sound of a lawnmower running. It was such an unusual sound in New York, though it was probably pretty common out here. He’d get use to it, though he wasn’t sure he’d ever get use to the lack of the ever present hum of sound that came with living in a city. Billy pushed open two of the slats in the blinds and looked out. 

Um.

His window overlooked the neighbor’s backyard where a guy about his age with blond hair was currently mowing the grass. Shirtless. He wasn’t as built as some of the football players Billy had seen, but there was a definite layer of muscle on him. A fine sheen of sweat made him gleam in the sunlight. The faintest tinge of pink across the guy’s shoulders and back indicated the beginnings of a sunburn.

“Billy! Come down and get the rest of your boxes.” Billy jumped as if he’d been physically caught staring.

“Coming,” Billy yelled back. He took one last look at the blond, before he let the blinds close. With a sigh, he turned to head back down the stairs and another Sisyphean climb up the stairs with a box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this was just a one off scene where I was complaining in my head about having to mow the lawn, and then got an idea of how it would better if Teddy were around to mow the lawn. The idea took off from there.


	11. Young Avengers: The One Where Teddy's Dead, Billy/Teddy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Character death (Teddy Altman), weird sense of humor, dead brought back to life
> 
> For Miome, who has spent the last two weeks asking when I was going to post what I had of "the dead Teddy" story. :D

The first time Billy heard Teddy's voice after Teddy had died was during a battle.

Billy was fighting some third-rate super villain wannabe that called himself the Exterminator, but who Tommy referred to as "The Orkin Man." He had tried to break into a bank and failed. Spectacularly. Which was pretty normal up until the Exterminator had taken hostages and four other third-rate super villain wannabes had shown wanting to rob the same bank. Then all Hell had broken loose.

"I will squash you like a bug, you pathetic user of magic," the Exterminator yelled as he attempted to spray Billy with some sort of violently yellow goo

"Seriously? User of magic? You need to work on your dialogue." Witty banter helped him think, helped him concentrate on something other than the fact that he was in the middle of battle. Billy easily threw up a shield. The goo caused the pavement to bubble and hiss. "Glad I blocked that."

"You can run but you cannot hide from the Exterminator."

"Except I am standing right here." Billy did the lightning thing because it was safe. Even after years and years of practice, sometimes his magic would act like a petulant child and refuse to do what he wanted. His lightning at least behaved. Most days.

He was concentrating so hard on the Exterminator that Billy totally didn't realize one of the other villains had crept up on him until it was almost too late.

_WICCAN! Behind you!_

In the seconds before Billy's brain caught up and realized that the voice shouting at him sounded _just like Teddy_ , his body has already reacted to the command. He ducked down just in time for something large to whiz over his head. Billy didn't bother to even look behind him. He just pulled lightning down. It was satisfying to hear yelling.

After that, the fight ended rather quickly. The Young Avengers subdued the criminals and turned them over to police. It was only when everything was over than Billy realized his hands were shaking.

"Wiccan, are you okay?" Eli asked. "That was a close call."

"Yeah, it's fine. Adrenaline." The smile Billy gave felt weak, and no one looked convinced, but no one called him on it either. Teddy would have called him on it, but Teddy was _dead._ Had been for over two years since last month. There was no reason to think he'd heard him. Billy hadn't moved on, but he had accepted the fact that Teddy was gone.

That didn't stop him from repeating the words over and over in his head, like a broken record.

***

Teddy watched as Billy started to glow blue. _What are you doing?_

"Using magic," Billy replied. He started to mutter under his breath.

_In the middle of the cemetery? Don't you think someone is going to notice?_ It was a valid concern. The night was pitch black without even a moon in the sky, and Billy glowed like a night light.

"Teddy, if magic is going to force me to dig up the body of my dead boyfriend at midnight three years after he's passed, the least it can do is make sure I don't have to use a shovel to do it." Billy's voice was tight, like it got whenever someone was distracting him in the middle of a spell. "Do you want to be whole again or not?"

_Good point. Do it._

***

He had the dim feeling (later, he'll stop using that word) that this, this sudden flick-of-a-switch transition from nothing to consciousness, was not how it was supposed to go, but when his mind reached on reflex to find an example of what it ought to be, there was nothing. Quite possibly it was because he was too busy trying to get use to being corporeal again: to fill his lungs with oxygen, to feel his heart beat in his chest, to control the tightening spasms of his muscles as they struggle to obey. Somehow, in the three years since his death, Teddy had forgotten how to live.

Billy was there. He was speaking and Teddy knew he really should listen to the words, but putting meaning to sound seemed just beyond him right now. But that didn't stop him just listening to tone of Billy's voice. There was worry in the strained syllables, a note of panic in the way his words kept falling over each other to be heard.

Words were beyond Teddy right now, but there were other ways he could get Billy to stop babbling. When he thought he had everything under control, Teddy decided to give Billy a smile. He raised his head and forced the corners of his mouth up. It felt shaky, a wobbly smile that was slightly off-kilter, but when Billy returned it with a smile of his own, Teddy knew everything was going to be all right.

Which was about the time his stomach rebelled and he threw up acid and bile all over Billy's shoes.

Well. That wasn't as reassuring as he'd meant it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I had three more sections of this planned out (because I had 3 sets of sections breaks and notes for other scenes), but could never quite maintain the strange humor that was in the other sections. I didn't want this to turn morbid. Also, I couldn't come up with a good explanation of what happened to Teddy other than hand waving and yelling the word "Magic!" a lot. Readers deserve better than that. Still, I think it stands alone with what I have written. The third part was written first and if my notes are correct, was in response to a first line challenge. Which has been heavily modified through various edits. It also explains why its not in my usual writing style.
> 
> For those of you not in America: Orkin is a pest control company that use to run commercial about "The Orkin Man" was some sort of superhero that would come to your house and kill bugs.


	12. The Hobbit: Heart of the Dragon, no pairing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter differs from the other stories in the series in that its longer (5,000 words) and is made of several scenes. No explicit pairing in this part. Body horror, so be warned about that. Shape-changing and dragons as well.

When Thorin touched the Arkenstone, it burned.

He almost dropped it there on the floor of the tent, but managed to fumble it back into his hands. If Thorin had dropped it there was no way he would have been able to pick it back up. His wounds were too grievous for that. Thorin knew he was dying, could feel the cold creeping up on him, but he wanted to hold the Heart of the Mountain

Even now, Thorin craved the Arkenstone. He loved it. He hated it. This was the reason he had almost lost everything, the reason he was dying, the reason his nephews were dead, the reason he'd driven Bilbo away. He wanted to throw it across the camp. He wanted to hold it close and never let it go.

It wouldn't matter much longer. The bandages around his chest were soaked in blood and it hurt to breathe. His strength was fading. He was dying. Thorin brought the stone closer. He expected to see blisters on his fingers, or maybe frostbite. It was hard to tell if the stone was too hot or too cold. His fingers didn't look any different though.

He tilted his hand, and the stone rolled onto his chest. Thorin could get lost in its depths. It was flawless, each facet reflecting the flickering light of the brazier. His grandfather had spent hours looking at it, and Thorin wished he could do the same. 

It wasn't enough. It wasn't his heart. It wasn't his people or his home or his nephews or even one infuriating Hobbit. It was a stone, beautiful, but cold. Empty. Nothing.

Thorin laid a hand on the stone, pushed it down against the bandages on his chest until it hurt, just to feel something other than the numbing cold, and wished that everything had been different. A terrible cold was creeping up on his limbs. His vision was greying around the edge. He could feel his heartbeat slowing, and could taste blood in the back of his throat.

And suddenly, the world was filled with white fire.

His fingers went rigid, curling in on themselves until they resembled claws. Thorin felt his whole body seize until his spine bowed up off the cot that was to be his death bed. It hurt. It hurt worst that anything he'd ever felt. Surely even dragon fire couldn't burn this hot. He tried to scream, but couldn't draw enough breath. It felt like he was drowning, and Thorin fought for breath.

Somehow he rolled right off his cot and onto the floor. His hair hung limply around him, dirty and crusty with dried mud and blood from the battlefield. He'd managed to catch himself on hands and knees as he fell, leaving him kneeling on the rugs that made up the floor of the tent. The fire was burning through his chest, and into his ribs. Thorin dropped to his elbows, trying to breathe through the burning pulse that was settling in his bones.

Instinct drove him to claw the bandages from his chest, fingernails catching on cloth and skin alike. There was blood under his nails. The Arkenstone was burrowing into the wound on his chest, settling against the bone there. The Heart of the Mountain grated against his breastbone and then pushed itself deeper.

What had he done? What was happening to him? He needed to get away. Somewhere dark and cool, where Thorin could feel the weight of stone pressed safely around him. Erebor. The mines of his home called to him.

The need to be protected drove Thorin to his feet, even as the pain that wracked his body drove him back to his knees. He felt bones shift, trying to bend in ways that his body was not meant to until they broke with a series of cracks. His vision greyed. Then the pain ebbed giving him time to try again.

This time Thorin made it to the flap of the tent. The fires that blazed outside made him flinch. He could smell other dwarves, could hear the sounds of them moving around. He retreated back into the tent. No. He couldn't go that way. Every instinct he had told him he couldn't be seen.

Yet he couldn't stay here either. Someone came by around every hour to check on him, to see if the King Under the Mountain was dead yet. Thorin felt rage course through him, and battled it back down. The dwarves were his people. They came out of concern. Not the morbid curiosity the rage inside him thought it was.

That above all else convinced Thorin to listen to the sudden instincts that told him to get away and hide. He couldn't hurt others. He couldn't let anyone see him like this.

Questions. There would be so many questions. Thorin had the Heart of the Mountain wedged into his breastbone and even though just a few minutes ago he'd been on death's door, he was now up and moving. There had always been whispers that the Arkenstone had some sort of magic. Now Thorin knew it to be true.

If the front of the tent was out, he'd go out the back. It took some work and he had to stop every few minutes as another pulse of pain ripped through him, but Thorin managed to get the tent side up. There were no guard on this side, and the space was blessedly dark. 

Thorin moved through the dwarven camp as quickly as he could. Dwarves were known for their sharp eyesight at night, but his seemed particular sharp. He clung to the shadows, going on hands and knees every time a wave of pain hit. 

Somehow Thorin managed to avoid being seen. It helped that everyone was tired, distracted, or hurting. Despite this, there were some close calls: a guard with too sharp eyes that had looked for a long moment at the shadows before muttering to himself and walking away, an elven healer that had come from nowhere only to rush away at the last second towards another tent, a pair of lovers thankful to be alive and taking advantage of the relative privacy to be found between tents. Thorin seemed to sense each one a split second before he was spotted. He swore he could feel the breath of dwarves stirring the air.

It had taken him nearly any hour to reach the edge of camp, where the only dwarves he had to worry about were the sentries. Surely someone had noticed he was gone by now? Any moment, Thorin expected to hear a great cry go up behind him, but the camp remained quiet. All to soon Thorin was slipping past the sentries, who were more concerned with anything coming towards the camp and less about anything leaving. Then he was off into the night, heading towards Erebor.

He didn't really remember the journey from the camp to the mountain. It was dark, the night cold. The strange instincts drove him leaving him with only flashes of memory. Thorin could remember the shape of Erebor outlined against the stars, the feel of dirt under his hands as pulled himself into a small cave, the vast chambers of stone and flickering torches, the biting cold of the water he waded across a small stream somewhere inside the mountain.

Deeper and deeper Thorin went, bypassing the mines until he found natural fractures and crevasses. He followed the stream for a while until it came a pool of water. The instincts which had led him under the mountain urged him forward. Thorin waded into the water. It was bitterly cold, but that didn't seem to matter. He went further and further out until suddenly, the ground rose to meet his feet. 

On the other side of the pool was a large crack that led to a cavern. There was no light, but it didn't matter. Thorin felt what the space was like. It was large and relatively dry, with stalagmites he found with his shin and a stalactite he found with his head. It also felt safe in a way nothing else had. Here. Here was where he would stay.

In the middle of the cave, Thorin stripped his wet clothes off, curled down on the stone floor, and slept while the eerie silence of the mountain pressed down on him.

***

Hunger drove him up and out of sleep. Thorin remembered the pool of water he'd waded through, and returned to it. There were cave fish: blind and ghostly white. He caught nearly a dozen, ripping into their flesh with claw tipped hands and teeth, and forcing himself to swallow down the muddy tasting flesh. 

It should have been impossible for him to see, even with dwarven sight. The cave was pitch black. But Thorin felt the space around him, hearing echoes where there was no sound. He knew where the water's edge was, could feel the ripples caused by the fish, and even imagined he could feel the vastness of the cave he was in. It was strange, but Thorin didn't have the capacity to question it too much.

Once the ache in his belly had been satisfied, Thorin returned to where he'd slept. The cold and the damp didn't bother him. His stripped off his clothes smelled comforting. Like musk and dwarf and home. Thorin curled back up on them, and slept.

***

For the most part, Thorin slept, ate fish when hunger became too much, and slept some more. Sometimes he woke to vague aches and pains as his body shifted into something else. Something not dwarvish. Exhaustion kept him from caring too much, though he knew that indifference would not last forever.

Sometimes he heard things in the mountain. The creaks and groans and silence of the rocks of Erebor were as clear to him as words of Khuzdul written across a page, waiting to be read. A vein of gold along one wall was a sentence. The plink of water from a stalactite was a paragraph. The distant sound of a hammer was a page. The shudder of the mountain as a tunnel collapsed was a book. He knew these things as if they had always been written in his bones. Stone sense, the miners called it, but Thorin had never had it and never felt lesser for it.

Thorin slept away the seasons, but he also learned.

***

Hunger and a desire to eat something other than fish drove him to leave his sanctuary. Thorin was quickly growing to loathe fish. He had killed all but the most wary of them in the water near his lair, and was having to hunt through the caverns anyway for more sources. If Thorin had to stray from his place of rest to find food, he'd rather do it for something he wanted to eat rather than more tasteless fish.

It didn't seem strange to Thorin that he now walked on all fours, sometimes crouching so low his belly pressed to the ground. The pain in his bones had lessened. The Arkenstone pulsed in his breastbone. Sometimes Thorin remember that there was something wrong with that. Then the thought was there and gone, barely acknowledged, before it was swamped by the sheer amount of knowledge that pressed on him from all sides.

There were other oddities as well. The caves and passageways seemed much smaller than they had been when he first come through them. Occasionally that struck Thorin as odd. He knew he had lost weight. Too much weight. Shouldn't the passage ways seem larger?   
He could taste the air if he used his tongue. It flicked in and out. For a split second, Thorin was reminded of a serpent – red scales that gleamed in the light, eyes full of disdain, and words spoken in a tongue that sounded like destruction given voice ¬- but like all the other little things that didn't quite add up, the memory fled before he could fully comprehend it.

Instead, Thorin flicked his tongue out again, testing various air currents until he taste fresh air. There. That would lead his outside. To where there was something other than fish. 

Following the trail of fresh air was a lot harder than he'd first thought. Thorin found he couldn't fit through a lot of the smaller cracks, caverns, and even some of the mineshafts. Each time he came to one, Thorin was forced to double back and try a different path. Sometimes Thorin lost the taste of fresh air altogether, but after some searching, he always managed to pick it up again.

Hours later, Thorin saw a crack with sunlight coming through. It was too small for him to fit through. Still he pressed his nose against it and breathed. He smelled sunlight and weeds, dirt and grass. And deer. Thorin's mouth watered at the thought of fresh, red meat.

Should he look for another way out or simply widen this one? Thorin shifted his weight from one side to the other, his head moving in a sinuous pattern as he thought. On one hand, he did not want any more entrances into Erebor, because such things could be used to attack the mountain or to gain entrance to his lair or the tunnels. The urge to guard and protect surged through him, and Thorin hissed.

He also didn't know where this crack came out. Thorin's inner sense of direction, always better when under stone than when under sky, told him it was the far side of the mountain away from Dale and the great gates. Somewhere on the north-eastern side. Just because it was away from the most traveled and settled parts of the mountain didn't mean that there was no one there. All it meant was that the chances of there being anyone around were greatly reduced.

On the other hand, it had taken Thorin hours to find even this small crack. How much longer would it take to find an unknown and unprotected exit from the mountain that he could squeeze out of? 

Ultimately, it was the scent of deer that convinced Thorin. He just didn't have the patience to find another opening. Thorin reached out with huge, clawed forefeet and began to move rock and dirt. The rock was heavily weathered around the opening and came apart easily. The hole doubled, then trebled, then quadrupled in size. Thorin used his muscled back legs to push the debris behind him, and clear more room around the opening.

By the time Thorin had made the hole big enough to barely squeeze through, he was shaking from the effort. It was worth it though. Sunlight poured into the cave, rich and golden. Thorin could hear the sound of a thrush, understood what each note meant. Ware! Hawk in the sky! Hawk in the sky! The wind rushed down the mountain and rippled through the grass.

His head went through the hole easily enough, though something caught on the edge of the opening and pulled more dirt down onto his neck and back. It didn't stop him from going through, so Thorin ignored it. Thorin's shoulders were a tight squeeze, but by digging in with his back claws, he managed. The next part would be hardest, because his back legs no longer reached the ground and he didn't have as much leverage. His rib cage was thin from lack of food, and Thorin pulled that through using just his forearms. His hips were harder. They stuck in the hole and it took a large amount of undignified wiggling to get them unstuck. His tail came last.

Tail?

All at once, everything that Thorin had determinedly not been thinking about came rushing forward. Dwarves did not have tails. He was no longer a dwarf. What was he? What manner of creature had he become?

Part of him didn't want to know. Wanted instead to go back to ignorance or denial. But Thorin had never let something like his own wants and desires get in the way of the truth, even when the truth was ugly. Especially when it was ugly.

So instead, Thorin dropped his gaze to his hand. Foot. He walked on all four now, so it was his forefoot. It reminded Thorin of some great eagle's foot, only with five fingers and covered in tiny black scales. The claws were dark grey, sickle shaped, and sharp. 

His forearms were similarly covered in black scales, though the ones on the front of his forelegs were larger. They reminded Thorin of plate armor. Thin veins of metal gleamed in the sunlight. Mithril. His scales looked like black rock veined in mithril. 

Thorin really didn't need to look further to know what he had become. Dragon. Yet he forced himself to examine every change that had occurred.

He had heard that dragon's underbellies were soft and slimy. Yet when Thorin touched his own chest and stomach, he found only hard plates of scales. The Arkenstone was still lodge in his breast, resting against the keel of bone there. It glittered in the sunlight, fey and beautiful, but without the ability to capture and hold his interest any longer. Thorin brought his clawed hand to it, and felt the steady pulse of his heart beneath it. The choked bark of laughter he gave was bitter. They'd called it the Heart of the Mountain. Now it was his heart.

His neck was long, and Thorin used it to his advantage to look at what other changes the stone in his breast had wrought. Each rib showed through his skin, and he could count the vertebrae down his spine. But that wasn't what caught Thorin's attention. 

He had wings. They hung limply against his side, instead of neatly folded back. By concentrating, Thorin found he could move them. Slowly, he unfolded them until they were completely outstretched. The skin stretched between each "finger" was inky black, but thin enough that he could see each vein where the light hit it. All too soon his muscles began to tremble and Thorin did his best to neatly fold them back once more.

Wings meant he wasn't some long-worm or spark dragon then. Had he turned into a fire drake like Smaug? Or was he more like the cold drakes of legend that had driven the dwarves to settle Erebor and the Iron Hills?

Thorin's back feet were clawed similarly to his front feet, though the claws seemed blunter. His tail was long and ended with two small ridges of scales. Thorin mentally tried to compare himself in size to Smaug. He was much smaller that the firedrake had been. Was that usual? Strange? He had never much concerned himself with the vagrancies of different types of dragons before. It had been enough to know that the only good dragon was a dead dragon.

Now he regretted that. Thorin had turned into the thing his people feared and loathed the most. Thorin bit back the urge to keen, to rage against fate. His people had been through enough with one dragon. He would not inflict another upon them if he could.

At the same time, he couldn't leave either. Erebor was his home. He'd been born here, and he had hoped to die here. Were dragons immortal? Like elves? Thorin felt the knowledge blossom in his mind and shuddered.

Neither mortal nor immortal. Dragons could be killed, but did not die on their own. Their fire burned all sickness from them, and their scales protected them from most harm. As long as they kept to their lairs, they could live forever. Sleep and food and their hordes were all they needed. 

But they never kept to their lairs. Even the first, mighty Glaurung, could not remain forever in his lair. The world extended before them, and there was so many things to amuse them.

He wasn't sure he liked how knowledge just seemed to bloom in his mind like that. It was definitely not a dwarven trait. Then again, Thorin was no longer a dwarf. In body at least, if not completely in mind.

Options. What were his options? Despite his self-loathing, the thought of just laying down and dying was repulsive to Thorin. Dragons were not a race that simply laid down and died, and dwarves were similarly inclined. He didn't want to leave the mountain. He didn't want to leave his people.

Maybe eating would help. Hunger was making him light-headed and foul tempered. Thorin would find something to eat, and then he would return to his mountain to think.

The far slopes of Erebor had escaped the worst of the desolation caused by Smaug's reign. They were covered in patchy weeds, scrubs, and the occasional twisted tree. Some of the flowers were in bloom, and the bright green of new growth

That gave him pause. How long had he been asleep? Thorin knew he had been struck down in early winter. He could remember the cracking ice under his feet moments before he was struck down. Something told Thorin that more than mere months had passed since he'd retreated to his lair in the mountain. Smaug had slept for years without being seen. Had the same happened to him?

Another thing to consider after he'd eaten.

Thorin soon found that despite his size, his new body moved with an easy grace across the ground. Few pebbles turned under his feet. It was eerie just how silent he could move. He managed to startle rabbits, fat pheasants, a pair of grouse, and even a wildcat as he passed. But he wasn't interested in the small game. Something else held Thorin's attention.

Deer.

There was a small herd of hinds resting in a hollow. Thorin could both smell and sense their presence. They were the smallest of the four species that inhabited the lands near Erebor, grey-brown in color and with small branching antlers on the stags. Nothing like the larger red deer that populated the grasslands and valleys, the golden brown spotted deer with the massive antlers that lived near copses or forest, or the monstrously large elk that walked Mirkwood. One of these would barely be a meal for him now given his size, but Thorin did not think he had the patience to track down any of the larger deer species.

He thought for a second and decided that as soon as he could, Thorin would hunt one of the great elk in the forests of Mirkwood. Maybe he'd get lucky, and it would be an elven mount that fell to his claws. It gave him something to look forward to.

It was surprising easy to sneak up on the deer. The deer were relaxed. Thorin was upwind. Soon he would be within distance. Then his foot fell upon a patch of dry grass. It crackled under his weight. All the deer leapt to their feet and turned towards him. 

Somehow, Thorin caught the eye of one, and it froze. The hind's heart was pounding – he could hear it even at this distance – but it didn't seem to be able to move. His gaze ensnared another. Then a third. The others had already taken off. He could see their tails flashing white in the distance.

Closer. One of the hinds was struggling, snorting as it tried to break Thorin's hold, but unable to look away. The others were breathing heavily, but remained motionless. Hunger seemed to give his gaze strength. Thorin moved closer.

Then Thorin lunged. As soon as his eyes left the hinds, all three attempted to scatter. He caught one across its back legs with his claws, sending it crashing to the ground. Thorin snapped the other's neck with a quick twist of his head. Once that one was dead, he pounced on the injured deer breaking its back before breaking its neck.

The third hind was long gone. That was fine. Two deer wasn't bad. Thorin hissed, feeling exposed. He dragged his kills into the hollow one by one. Only then did he start to feed.

He gorged himself on the dead deer, bolting back food in a display that would have horrified Thorin if he wasn't so hungry. Blood got everywhere. It stained his claws and teeth bright red, and turned the ground muddy. Thorin did his best not to notice or if he did notice, not to care. Hunger made it surprisingly easy.

"Deer eyes. I haven't had one of those in a while."

Thorin looked up from his meal. There was a raven perched on a small twisted tree. It watched him with one eye, ruffled its feathers, and then waited expectantly.

Did he want the eyes? Thorin thought the answer was no. He seemed to be much more interested in the meat, though Thorin did think the heart and possibly the liver would be good. Then he had to wonder why this was life, that he was contemplating which bits of raw, dead deer were the most appetizing.

Ravens had been allies to the dwarves of Erebor since his grandfather's time. It had been a raven who had brought them news of Smaug's defeat to him, and old Roác had summoned his cousin Dain. The birds still deserved as much respect as Thorin could offer them.

"You can have the eyes on the other one," Thorin said. "I'm eating this one."

"And when you're done?" the raven asked.

"You can have whatever is left," Thorin said. Then he suddenly realized that the raven wasn't speaking Khuzdul or Westron like the ravens of his youth. It was cawing at him and he still understood it. "I can understand you." 

The raven gave him a look like he was too stupid to be believed. "Course you can. Dragons understand the language of birds." The raven landed neatly on the head of the other hind. "All birds. You could even listen to chickens if you wanted to, although all they talk about is bugs and how big their cock's combs are, if you get my drift."

Thorin snorted and returned to his deer, while trying to ignore the sound of the raven enjoying the other one. Above them, several ravens circled. He listened with half an ear as they spoke of the feast they would have once he was gone.

"What is your name?" Thorin asked. The raven cocked its head to one side, and the meaning in the gesture was as clear as if the raven had spoken. "I would know the raven brave enough to approach a dragon and ask to share a meal."

The raven let out series of caws. Laughter. "I am Sigga, daughter of Isic."

A female raven. Thorin didn't know why he was surprised. Of course there were female ravens. He had just assumed the raven was male in much the same way all elves looked female to him.

"Well met, Sigga daughter of Isic," Thorin replied. For all that he was no longer king or dwarf, manners had been drilled into him almost from birth. 

"You are not Smaug," the raven said suddenly. Thorin looked up sharply and the raven met his gaze. "Smaug the Mighty. Smaug the Great. Bah. Smaug the Indolent. Smaug the Greedy. He'd rather burn a deer kill than let another have some, even if he himself didn't want it." The raven gave a harsh cry, something that was not quite a laugh and not quite a sob. "Despite what you may fear, you are not Smaug, Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, and the ravens of Ravenhill and Erebor will remember that."

"How did you know?" The meat he'd just eaten sat like a stone in his belly. "How...?"

"You still think like a dwarf," Sigga replied. "You look at things and only see what you are looking at. But ravens look at something and see what is actually there." The raven fluffed her feathers and then smoothed them back down again at Thorin's confused look. "You'll learn. 

"I don't want to be a dragon. I don't even know how I became one," Thorin replied.

"The way the Great Wyrm, the Golden one, the Father of all Dragons, was made. With an earth heart fused to a living creature." Sigga eyed him. "Though I was told that it had to be swallowed, which I don't think is quite what happened to you given yours is on the outside.

"Who told you that?" Thorin asked. 

"Even Smaug would deign to talk to us lesser creatures," here Sigga made a noise of derision, "when he got bored enough. He was very proud that he was descended from the first of the firedrakes. Mighty Glaurung. He surely had enough flattering sobriquets and epithets for his ancestor."

Thorin pressed his head to the Arkenstone. Earth heart. Heart of the Mountain. Had Thráin the Old somehow known? Or had his people, with their sense of stones and metal and gems, felt some sort of echo of knowledge like what dragons heard?

Before he could reply, Sigga took to startled flight. Thorin watched her go in confusion before he heard a sound. Someone was coming. Thorin left the mostly eaten deer out for the ravens, picked the one missing its eyeballs up in his mouth, and quickly retreated back up the mountain. 

It was time to return to his lair. Thorin had so much to think about.

***

There had been cave-ins along several of the new tunnels. Thorin had been looking for a new lair – some of the miners were getting too close to his original one and it was making the dragon instinct in him antsy – when the rumbling started. He'd braced himself as the mountain trembled, crouched low against the stone floor. Rocks groaned and shattered through the corridors. When it was done, he could taste dust in the back of his throat. Then the prayers and wails had started.

Thorin was moving before he even really thought about it. He found the first of the falls blocking a natural adit. His tongue flickered out to taste the air. Blood. Too much. He calmed his own racing heart as much as he could and listened. Nothing. 

He quickly said a prayer over the dwarves trapped in stone, then moved on. Thorin could not waste time on the dead. There could be others he could save.

Even at its most solid, Erebor was full of cracks and crevices. The rocks were bent and fractured – anticlines, synclines, joints, and faults were all common – and veins of metal ore or seams of precious stone were never straight. Water seeped through the cracks carving out caverns, or filling fissures with dissolved stone. It was a maze of dead-ends and passages. Thorin took full advantage of his knowledge of the mountain and his own nature, sliding easily from dragon to dwarf to dragon again in order to get where he needed to go. 

The next group he came across was already being rescued. Dwarves mined frantically at the friable rock to get to the survivors, which were helping by banging out their location through the stone. Thorin paused just long enough to see the first of the buried dwarves being rescued before he moved on without being noticed.

There was blood in the air when Thorin found the third fall. Part of the roof and a good portion of the sidewalls had fallen into the shaft. A few of the lanterns were still lit, leaving patches of light and shadow. Thorin could see some of the iron bolts that were supposed to have held the roof of the mine still in the ceiling, though the rock littering the floor and the length of exposed bolt indicated they had not down their job. Would the rest of the ceiling hold? Or would he be freeing the miners only to watch them be crushed again?

He shifted to dragon form, rocked back on his hind legs, and pressed his nose against the rock. It was not much of a stretch. The tunnel wasn't that big. Thorin closed his eyes. If he listened, Thorin could hear Erebor whispering to him.

The ceiling would hold. There would be no more roof falls here. Thorin dropped back down to four feet and approached the fall. If Thorin concentrated, he could hear heartbeats. Five? Maybe six? There was too much stone for him to read the air currents, which he'd found was much easier for him than listening. They were all grouped together though, regardless of the number.

Five or six heartbeats all clustered together spoke of a void in the fall. If Thorin was careful, he could pull some of the rocks out without sending any into the space where they were trapped. That would at least give the miners access to fresh air, and might give them a way to escape if he could safely make the hole big enough. 

Using both claws and teeth, Thorin began to clear the rock near the top. Soon his mouth was filled with grit, and dirt covered his scales. More than once he had to stop to check the roof. It held. 

Nearly an hour later, he had managed to clear a hole barely big enough to fit his nose in. There was nothing but silence from the void, but at least now Thorin could feel from the movement of the air that indicated several dwarves was breathing. Were they unconscious? Injured? The scent/taste of blood was still heavy in the air. He shifted his weight from side to side, and made a low sound of worry.

If he could taste the air in the void, Thorin might be able to better pinpoint the source of the blood scent and tell whether it meant injury or death. As a dragon, his sense of taste was much better than his sense of smell. Thorin leaned forward and pressed his snout into the hole in preparation for flicking out his tongue.

And got a pick-axe in his nose for his trouble.

"Mahal's balls!" Thorin roared. It had gone into one nostril, hitting the sensitive lining where there were no scales. He rubbed at his nose with the back of one forefoot and felt wetness. Blood. He was bleeding. 

How dare they! Red swamped his vision, he crowded near the opening. Each word Thorin growled in Khuzdul sounded like gravel and darkness. "Do that again, and I will enjoy feasting on your bones."

Thorin heard a bitten off cry, and growled. Part of Thorin wanted to claw at the rocks until he could get at the dwarves inside. His tongue flickered out. He could taste their fear and it sat sweet on his tongue. 

Control. He needed to gain control. Thorin backed away from the opening and paced. Blood dripped from his nose, and he snorted several times to clear it. Finally, the rage drained away and his thoughts felt more dwarven than draconian. Only then did he return to the hole in the fall.

There was quiet weeping, and a low voice offering comfort in Khuzdul. The weeping sounded young. A child? Could he really blame the dwarves for trying to protect a child? Thorin swallowed hard before he spoke.

"I am trying to help," he said. It had been so long since he'd spoken Khuzdul that the words sounded strange on his tongue. "How many of you are there?"

For a long moment, there was no response. Then a strong voice replied. "Five of us. One of the timbers held and protected us from the worse of the fall."

He knew that voice. Bofur. Thorin resisted the urge to flee, back to the darkness and the caves and away from the life he had lost. When he spoke, his voice was calm. "The roof is holding for now. I'm going to clear more of the rocks. Do not hit me with another pickaxe."

"Can't promise anything," Bofur replied. Thorin could hear the smile in the dwarf's voice and felt himself smile in return.

The work was delicate. Thorin tried to be as quick as he could, but at the same time, he didn't want to rocks to shift. More than once he heard the wooden beam groan, but it held. There were muttered conversations, but they were too low for Thorin to make out, and he couldn't spare the concentration to really listen to them.

"Can you get to the hole I've cleared?" Thorin asked. He backed away. Dwarves were always armed, even when mining. Sometimes especially when mining, depending on what they expected to encounter. "It should be big enough."

Somehow, Thorin wasn't surprised to see a very familiar hat on top of a familiar face come through the hole. There was a hint of grey in his mustache, but it was definitely Bofur. Thorin was not expecting Bofur's next words though. "Of course. A dragon. We got rid of the last one, you know."

There was an almost fatalistic air to the words. Which made sense. The likelihood of someone facing a dragon in an enclosed space with nothing short of suicide. 

"Did he say dragon?" said a voice from the void.

"At least Bofur has some experience with this sort of thing," said another. Thorin snorted in laughter. There were sniffles, probably from the weeping child, but they were slowly being brought under control.

He backed away as Bofur began to climb down from the hole. Bofus had his mattock in his hands, and was using it to steady himself. There was blood on his pants, and a cut above his eyes. Thorin had seen how Bofur used his mattock in battle. It had more reach that it seemed like it should, and Thorin wanted to make sure he was nowhere near Bofur should he get it into his head to take a swing.

"I am not here to fight you," Thorin said as he took another step back.

"You'll pardon me if I don't believe you," Bofur replied. "Nothing personal."

Then Bofur froze. Thorin realized he was standing in a pool of light from one of the remaining lanterns. It caught in the facets of the Arkenstone, making it seem to glow. He stepped back as quickly as he could, going from light to shadow. The damage was done.

"Where did you get that?" Bofur asked.

"It is not yours," Thorin hissed. He felt panic rise up in him. "You saw nothing." Bofur took a step back, mattock raised in defense. Thorin felt sick, but also trapped. "I must go. There are others who need my help. 

"Wait." 

Thorin ignored the call. Instead he slid into the darkness, and was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This all started with the several ideas straight from the Tolkien universe: the Arkenstone as a heart, the unknown origin of the first dragons, Tolkien different species of dragons. Then I added some different dragon legends and some of my own ideas to get dragon!Thorin.
> 
> I wanted so bad for this to eventually be Bilbo/Thorin. Despite several attempts, I could not get the timelines to work out. Yes, I know its AU and I could had-wave the timeline, but I was trying to keep Tolkien's timeline for Lord of the Rings as best I could. I failed. The plot point I couldn't workout was how to get Thorin to kidnap Bilbo in such a way that no one realized it was him or no one realized Bilbo was gone. Didn't happen. Everything I came up with eventually resulted in elves storming Erebor, and that did not work out well.
> 
> I may return to this world of salvage what I can from this story, but for now, I'm essentially done with it due to annoyance. There are several shorter pieces I may write just because I like the imagery or the world-building (for example, Thorin's wing shape do not allow him to fly long distances which annoys him greatly when it comes to exploring outside the mountain).


	13. Hikaru no Go, Shot in the Head Universe, implied Touya/Hikaru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a scene from the unfinished second part of Shot in the Head story. There were several scenes from the second part partially written, but nothing that could stand along. Except for this scene.

Ogata waited until Touya had climbed into the front seat, buckled his seatbelt, and settled himself before asking.

"How is he doing today?" There was no need to question who "he" was. There was only one he that it could be.

"... better," Touya haltingly replied. "He was able to sit up, and play a game." He fiddled with his seat belt straps nervously. It wasn't a lie. Not precisely. Hikaru had played the game... if it could be called playing. Still the partial truth felt dishonest so Touya found himself adding, "Sort of."

Ogata hmmm'ed in the back of his throat. He let it go long enough to negotiate the hospital parking lot and exit since that was taking most of his concentration. It wasn't until they were on the open road, with Akira still evidently brooding, that he pushed it.

"Did you let him win?" 

Touya looked at him in shock, eye slitted in disbelief. "No!" That made Ogata snort in laughter. The next words were hesitant. "... should I have?"

"That depends." Ogata tapped a cigarette out of the box, tucked it into his mouth, but did not light it. He was too busy dodging around a car that was double parked "Was he upset?"

"Hardly." Touya gave a less-than-dignified snort. "He fell asleep while counting territory. I had to rescue my travel goban from him."

"Then what's the problem?"

"There's not one." Touya composed his face into neutral blandness. Ogata waited patiently. It wouldn't take long now. "The game was ... _extremely_ bad." Touya blurted out. "I guess I've seen worse Go before, but never from Shindou. Once, he even put a stone between two positions and left it there!"

"If the game was so bad, why did you play him?" 

"He insisted. I didn't want to upset him any more. The nurses said he shouldn't be stressed," Touya said. He sighed. "Maybe I should have given him a handicap, but I can't imagine he'd react well to the suggestion."

Ogata took the still unlit cigarette from his mouth to gesture with. "A moku for every twenty or fifty milligrams depending on what they're on."

Touya gave him a confused look, so Ogata explained. "You can check the chart, or probably get one of the nurses to tell you. If you end up in negative points, just tell them that they just played the game and they won. They won't know the difference. If you get into the game, and they look to be not paying attention, just tap a stone against the side of the board. Tell them you've placed and it's there turn."

With every word, Touya grew more incredulous. "You can't be serious."

Ogata smirked. "It worked on your father."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone in the comments of another one of my Hikaru no Go story recently asked about the second part to the Shot in the Head story. Somehow I'm not surprised that I made this the most solid part. My weird sense of humor strikes again.


End file.
